1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to paper designed as an aid for teaching writing skills.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Paper for teaching writing skills consists generally of sheets of paper printed with horizontal parallel guide lines providing spaces in which to write. A pair of such parallel lines is usually divided into two equal parts by horizontal dash lines which guide a child in the proper formation of capital and lower case letters.
Other aids which have been used consist of templates on which a piece of transparent paper is placed. The template serves as a guide for forming lower case letters and the ascending and descending portions of such letters and capitals are formed above and below a cut out portion of the template. The template merely guides the correct height of the letters. Such a penmanship template is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,253,758 issued to H. D. Wilkes on Jan. 15, 1918. A similar guide positioned beneath a piece of writing paper is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,211,297 issued to G. E. Davis on Jan. 2, 1917.
Of more recent vintage is writing paper disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,332 issued to A. M. Jones on Feb. 1, 1972. In this patent, a two module staff is provided consisting of spaced parallel lines. On top of the first line of the staff is a green band and below the last line of the staff is a red band. The parallel lines are spaced by a dotted yellow line. Each of the two module staff just described is spaced from a similar staff by a band of blue color. The green band stands for "go" and tells a child where to begin writing or forming a letter such as an upper case capital letter. The red or bottom band indicates that the child should "stop" formation of a letter at this bottom line. The descending portions of lower case letters, however, are written in the blue band and lower case letters are started at the dotted yellow line. Accordingly, this type of writing paper is simply a newer version of the older two parallel line staff divided by a dotted line for signaling where to start writing upper and lower case letters.
All of the aforementioned teaching aids suffer from the same disability, that is, they deal with paper for teaching writing skills which use lines to write upon or have lines which serve as guides between which letters are formed. In later life, such paper is quite different from unruled and unlined paper on which adults normally write upon or at the very least, when lined paper is used, the letters are formed between a pair of such lines forming a one-staff writing space, rather than a two-staff writing space. Accordingly, as writing skill progresses, the learner must adjust from writing upon lined paper to unlined paper which requires that new ways of skipping lines must be learned, proper margination must be employed, etc.
Further, lines serve as inhibitors to the learning process rather than as an aid. A line is a space divider on which the correct formation of a letter is to be completed; yet, certain letters require that a student cross that line in the proper formation of the letter, such as those letters containing ascending and descending portions as "y," "p," and "d." When the line is crossed, collisions occur. Otherwise, a student must skip lines, and in this event, half the paper is wasted. Further, in order to write between lines, the student must physically strain to reach the proper line and not cross it, and confine his writing between the lines. In writing on unlined paper as a student progresses with his skills, he is therefore asked to visualize such lines. This is an abstraction and places value on form rather than substance of the writing.
Accordingly, the writing paper of the present invention utilizes a completely different concept to teach the correct formation of letters. No lines are provided on the paper, but rather, different shaded areas or bands of different colors are provided in a three staff module, with proper margination and spaces between the three staff modules to teach the formation of letters on an area rather than abutting any particular line.